[Article written for the feminist digital press project, Revista Akelarre]
It seems that there is something fundamental from which we have somehow disconnected: the fragility of existence, which is our own fragility and vulnerability. This includes unconscious symbolic constructions about life and death that position us in a certain way with respect to nature.
We exist in a whirlwind that makes it difficult to reflect on existence itself. Certain thoughts are characterized as unproductive, while consumption and finances determine productivity. We construct death as a taboo, denying it as though it were not always an unalterable reality. We medicalize, instrumentalize, and romanticize births. We poison them in agriculture and industrialize them in farming.
Honoring life and honoring death might seem like a private, subjective, and intimate matter. But what societal systems are built upon subtle yet foundational conceptions of life and death? It seems that the underlying figure in the social structures in which we operate is that of the omnipotent Male: he dominates nature by denying life and positions himself as superior by denying death.
To challenge this paradigm, recognizing ourselves as life means accepting that there is no possibility of dominating that which we are inherently a part of, that which nourishes us, gives us oxygen, and degrades us. The truth is that we depend on nature and cannot exist long-term while disrupting the orders and cycles of biodiversity. Recognizing ourselves as life means respecting it in all its forms, with the humility to see ourselves as equals to other manifestations of life. This acknowledgment should lead to the suspension of exploitation—of both people and animals in industries—and to halting the pollution and degradation of the earth. Perhaps by remembering that we, too, are mortal, we could reconnect with life’s fragility and step away from the position of domination and superiority constructed by the patriarchal system.
We know that with current levels and forms of consumption and production, the system will eventually collapse. Whether due to energy, forestry, climate, or water issues, if we continue at this pace, the destruction of human civilization as we know it is inevitable. One could argue that this hypothetical apocalyptic moment is already beginning to manifest in various ways across the globe: floods, temperature changes, contaminated aquifers, massive wildfires, pandemics. Whether critically or not, we live in denial of death—which sustains our consumption—and in denial of life—its cycles and limitations. We operate within a backdrop of increasing violence, inequality, and imbalance. The amounts of poison, medication, production, consumption, inequality, and precariousness grow. Even when there is awareness of imminent destruction, we have internalized it with great difficulty in perceiving and constructing possible alternatives through concrete actions. Indeed, no such alternative exists in purely individual terms without invoking the collective and structural.
The imbalances we are generating in nature’s cycles—such as COVID-19—show us that there is no individual escape, no real autonomy in our contemporary, urbanized, concentrated societies, utterly dependent on external supplies for survival: food, energy, water.
Our level of disconnection from the production and distribution of what we consume makes it seem almost natural that we can sustain ourselves through industrial or monetary mechanisms, forgetting the fact that everything originates and will always originate from the very earth we fail to care for and respect. Paradoxically, this disconnection is sustained by a profound interconnection that functions like a vast machine—every day and at every moment—linking sectors, regions, and resources to one another so that each person may live their apparent autonomy and individual freedom. The natural processes unleashed by human contaminating activities destabilize the structures of the capitalist economic system: satisfying the need for accumulation becomes increasingly complex in a context of environmental uncertainty.
The crisis in the economic processes of globalization and liberalization—evident mainly since Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States—has deepened with the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. Borders between countries were closed, and negotiations between nations over oil production occurred due to its plummeting price in international markets. State control powers increased, reinforcing their punitive and policing aspects, while expectations grew for the state to implement coordinated solutions and save us. This phenomenon has rippled down to the local level, where individuals are required to take individualized and controlled actions, while decision-making becomes increasingly centralized in executive powers, with the private sector expected to comply with public directives.
What will happen in the post-pandemic world after a production halt, the suspension of international input exchanges, an economic-financial recession, and bankrupt economic units? The challenges demand swift actions and consequential decisions with global and total impacts. The changes occurred faster than they could be assimilated: from the concept of the formal, legally equal citizen, reality has shifted to the biological, eschatological reality marked by inequality in conditions and equality in interdependence.
In the upper and middle sectors of society, debates revolve around how to entertain oneself during quarantine and how to care for the elderly population. At one point, the reflection on average death rates was: it doesn’t matter, it only affects the elderly and the sick. What does this reaction tell us about the care and importance we place on the elderly and the ill in our society? What are the experiences of this demographic in the face of the pandemic?
On the other hand, the brutal neglect faced by marginalized sectors is evident. A vast portion of the population, without stable employment and unable to sustain food, rent, services, and taxes, faces heightened vulnerability in the pandemic, without healthcare coverage. Some sectors of society even lack access to drinking water during a pandemic, while videos and memes about handwashing circulate on screens.
Healthcare professionals and essential workers are almost morally and legally obligated to occupy their workplaces, risking their health to contain the virus’s spread and prevent shortages.
Meanwhile, a sense of global totality grows; beyond national measures, economic differences, or social disparities, suddenly, we are all pandemic-world. We are all at risk, for the first time, in the face of a global phenomenon difficult to delimit by political borders. Paradoxically, in this situation where all our actions entail risks for ourselves and others, we can only contribute through social isolation.
It seems that the call for solidarity received the same response in most countries: mockery followed by fear. We become angry with those who do not respect the proposal for social isolation, first voluntary and then mandatory. The irresponsibility of those who continue to act as usual in the face of an imminent catastrophe that threatens our lives outrages us. But isn’t this exactly what we do every day, by reproducing the system we live in, one that harms life and denies death?
This is an opportunity for each of us to reflect on what this indignation mirrors about ourselves, what we reproduce and perpetuate, and what our habits fail to respect—those subtle internal elements that, of course, shape a particular structuring of the world. While it is true that there is no individual way out, responsibility is shared, and the process of internal deconstruction and healing should become a ritual that supports collective and political action.
Our productive and political machinery is being restructured to address the catastrophe caused by the saturation of healthcare systems and economic paralysis. Meanwhile, the root cause—the pollution and degradation of the nature we are part of—seems to be diminishing. The earth, life, and natural cycles are recovering with surprising speed. Communities are reconnecting with the possibility of death, the very essence of being alive, yet its antithesis in our daily lives. We are reconnecting with a sense of interdependence, becoming aware of the illusion of autonomy and the lack of self-sufficiency. We are taking responsibility and becoming conscious of the habits we can and must change.
The shockwave generated by the pandemic reveals the possibility of rapid, uncertain, structural change. Perhaps it is forcing us into such change. Regardless of how random or deliberate the phenomenon may be, its repercussions could represent an opportunity to prioritize environmental issues on the political agenda and to raise awareness about the disharmony between our existence and life itself.
